Se connecter

T the Trobriands we sighted our missing Ada at anchor and, upon the 마사지알바 Mizpah running alongside, discovered that she was full of native women. At first ugly looks and hands upon knives were the reception accorded by the deserters, but that was soon altered by my New Guinea boys. The divers and tenders expected bribes, argument, and persuasion to be used in order to induce them to return to their work, the sort of thing they had been accustomed to in the Torres Straits; instead of which, they got a curt order to get into the hold, and the next minute found their toes being smashed and their heads bumped by the brass-heeled butts of heavy Snider carbines. The New Guinea boys had always been rather despised by the Malays, and therefore were only too glad to get a little of their own back when opportunity offered. Spitting, cursing, and threatening, the Malays were all bumped below, and the hatches clapped on.

The next operation on the part of my crew was to throw all the women overboard, and let them swim ashore as best they were able. I may remark that all the Trobriand women could swim like fishes. A nice state we found the Ada in: stores, coats, spare gear, everything portable and of any value had been given to the women, not even the cooking utensils were left. If we had not arrived when we did, even her sails would have been cut up and disposed of. After viewing our damage and loss, Billy and I held a parley with our men under hatches, and found the Malay dignity was hurt by the treatment our boys had accorded them; the result was, they said they had no intention of resuming duty. I plainly saw that if I gave in to the brutes I should be utterly undone, and my quest would become quite hopeless; at the same time, without them I could do nothing. Billy now suggested that if I could depend on my New Guinea boys, the best thing we could do was to lie at anchor where we were, and trade for pearls and bêche-de-mer; in the meanwhile keeping our mutineers confined, until in a more reasonable frame of mind. This policy I adopted. Putting a couple of my boys on the Ada, we hauled her up and made her fast to the Mizpah, leaving her recalcitrant inhabitants still under hatches with neither food nor water.

42 For twenty-four hours I kept the Malays below; and then, outside the sand-bank forming the harbour, we sighted Moreton’s patrol schooner, the Siai, signalling to me to come out. Whereupon we moved the Ada from alongside the Mizpah to alongside the Curlew. The clatter and row made by this operation excited the curiosity of our prisoners, who, questioning the boys on deck, were told that the Siai was in sight, and that the Mizpah was going off to ask that they be taken and tried as pirates or ship-stealers. Awful howls and yells then came from the hold begging for an interview with me. Upon my going to the hatch and ordering the removal of one plank in order that the imprisoned men might talk to me, frenzied petitions for mercy were put up, accompanied by all sorts of strange oaths that, if forgiven, they would be good and faithful men in the future. Billy said, “Let ’em off, they will be all right in the future, and we can’t afford to have them jugged; also we can’t keep ’em below with a Government ship in sight or we shall get into trouble.” I therefore accepted their promises of good behaviour; at the same time I pointed out how magnanimous I was, and ordered them to disperse to their several vessels.